


The End of the Road

by AwkwardAnnie



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, M/M, The War of Wrath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardAnnie/pseuds/AwkwardAnnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fortress is lost. Melkor reaches out one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Road

The fortress was lost. The towers crumbled and the earth lay split like a wound uncovered. The forges poured their red-hot blood over the tortured stone and the armies were routed. The fortress was lost.

They caught up with him deep underground and his pleas fell on deaf ears. They beat him and chained him and collared him, and the herald in his winged helm took the hammer that had felled kings and broke it across one armoured knee like firewood. They dragged him from the earth into the sunlight, the blanketing shade of the clouds ripped away. In ranks upon ranks they stood, the blood of his slaughtered armies on their swords, and their shining eyes mocked him.

The ship lay in the midst of the rubble, odd and out of place, and he knew where it would carry him; the herald had been very clear. This was the end of the road. He was almost surprised it had not come sooner.

The deck was burning hot beneath his knees, blazing like the jewel— _his_ jewel—bound on the helmsman's brow. The sails swelled in a wind that was not of Arda's weather, and the golden vessel was borne aloft into the cloudless sky.

All of these things happened as if a dream. There was something more important.

He reached out. The light was everywhere, burning and blinding, and it fought him every step of the way, but he pushed past it, scouring the ruined mountains, the deep tunnels. It had to be there. It had to–

 _There_. Moving fast, winding through the labyrinthine passages below the toppled peaks, a brilliant flame. With all his strength he screamed its name.

It stopped. There was silence. Then, like a hurricane, rhapsodic in its fervour, came a reply.

_Melkor!_

For a moment he was so relieved he forgot that he still needed to breathe. Frantically he reached back along the link. _Mairon? Mairon, speak, tell me what has become of you!_

And from the depths of the earth, his faithful lieutenant answered. _I am alive, and that is about all that may be said. The tunnels collapsed some miles behind us. Where are you? If we can find where this path emerges we may turn back over the mountains and–_

 _No!_ Every scrap of his anger and pain lent strength to the command. _Listen to me, Mairon: you take whatever forces you can muster, and you fly. The fortress is lost and I am in bond. It is over. Fly and do not look back._

Sauron's reply when it came was ice-cold. _I will not._

_You will do as you are commanded, Gorthaur._

_And you, Bauglir, will set aside your wretched pride for once in your life and allow me to do my duty._

_Pride!_ Melkor scoffed aloud and the accursed herald tightened his grip on the chains. _This is not pride. You cannot free me now. They would have you before you saw them. They can but imprison me. You, they would destroy utterly._

Sauron's voice in his head grew ever more frantic. _You surely cannot expect me to sit here while they haul you away in irons! Not again!_

_There is nothing you can do; only the Void awaits me now._

_Then I shall wait_ , said Sauron.

_It will be in vain. There will be no pardon this time._

_Then I shall free you. I will find a way!_

_I said, no!_ Melkor spat the word, though it pained him to do so. _Mairon, cease this foolishness. I am still your lord. My word is your law._

Sauron's reply was a long time in coming. When it arrived, it was terse and clipped. _And_ w _hat would you have me do, my lord?_

 _I have one last command._ Memory was the only thing Melkor could carry beyond the edges of the World. He was going to make the most of it. _Speak to me._

_Concerning what?_

_Anything. I care not. Tell me... tell me who you have found. You spoke of "us"._

_What few I managed to gather. We are not many: perhaps fifty orcs, a handful of wolves. Thuringwethil is here, and–_ There was the sound of many voices, but far off and muffled as if heard through water, and Melkor realised that it was the mental echoes of whatever it was that Sauron was hearing. _Apologies, my lord. They wish for news. And... what? No, I'm not going to ask him that, you fool–_

_Yes, you are. I commanded you to speak._

There came down the feather-light connection the strangest sensation of a sigh, though it was tinged with desperation. _General Razbug wishes to ask if the total annihilation of the fortress will impact our supply of herring._

Melkor burst out laughing. There was no other option. Everything was lost, his empire crumbled, his armies laid waste and his spirit dragged kicking and screaming up into the heavens, and yet somewhere down below him his dear loyal lieutenant was _still_ being pestered about bloody fish. It was terrible, awful, and yet it was also the funniest thing he had ever heard, and he laughed and laughed until his eyes watered and he feared he would choke. The Maiar guarding him took a step backwards, and Manwë's vile servant spun on his heel and commanded him to be silent. Melkor managed to stop laughing long enough to spit on the deck at his feet. He earned himself a gauntleted backhand for his trouble and somehow that was _even funnier_.

 _Please,_ he begged through the fog of hysteria, _please, do not stop talking._

 _I am not sure what... no, I won't... very well! Thuringwethil would like it known that at one point in our flight down the tunnels I stumbled and she did not trample over me as she was tempted to do, and that in exchange she would like the lordship of all lands west of the Blue Mountains and east of the Great River._ There was a rough catch in Sauron's voice, a mental tremor that belied his carefree words.

_Done, done and thrice done. What else?_

_There is a wolf here, one of Draugluin's line. She stands taller than me at the shoulder, and she keeps licking my fingers._ Was it his imagination, or was Sauron's voice growing fainter? _Every time I push her away she looks at me as her foresire did when you forbade him from sleeping on your bed._

Melkor smiled at the memory. It was a surprisingly gentle one. _As if the creature ever harkened to me._

_He liked you! That was how he demonstrated his affection._

_By disobeying_ _me?_

 _They do say that master and beast become alike._ Definitely fainter; there was no doubt about it now. The connection between them was stretching like a thread. It would not be long before it snapped.

Sauron seemed to be realising this too; Melkor felt his anxiety like a shudder down his own spine.

 _Listen to me, Mairon,_ he said urgently. _It is your turn now. You must carry on the work. There is so much more to be done._

The air was growing thin. Arda was a gleaming jewel beneath the golden hull of the ship. There was precious little time left.

_But my lord, I cannot—_

_You_ can _. You have grown so strong, my dear Mairon, and you will only grow stronger. Rally our armies. Finish what we began._

Sauron's voice was barely a whisper now, the distance between them insurmountable, and yet Melkor still heard it crack.

_Please, my lord, I need—_

The thread snapped, and he was gone.

"No!" Melkor's sudden snarl made the Maiar behind him start; one went for their sword, but he paid it no heed. Desperately he stretched out, searching, but he was too weak, and it was just too far.

And in that moment the crushing realisation hit; every thought, every word, every deed over millennia of association thrown into terrifying perspective. But he'd run out of time, as he'd almost run out of air.

They were come to the edges of Creation where the Walls rose up to meet them, staggering in their vastness, and he finally understood what it was to be alone.

In the Wall, there was a Door, stood ajar, and beyond the Door yawned the great terrifying emptiness of Nothing.

He didn't fight the hands on his arms or the tug on the iron collar around his neck. Beneath him, the ship creaked as its helmsman brought the bow about, and then there came a jolt as the stern fetched up against the bottom of the Door.

Belatedly he wondered if he should try to think of some suitably cutting last words, but all his insults and barbed jibes felt strangely hollow. In the end it didn't even matter, because before he could even say anything the herald's boot in the small of his back hurled him from the deck, from the ship and from the whole of Creation.

 

 

Time stops. There is no Past or Future beyond the Door, just the all-encompassing Now.

There is no matter beyond the door, and in an instantaneous blaze of agony that lasts a hundred years he feels his body dissolve into nothingness, all its atoms ripped apart and dissipated in a rush of energy. Freed from its corporeal prison his spirit flares, a brief moment of power, but it is all he needs. With the last shreds of consciousness he hurls all his will back through the open Door, seeking out the one thing in all of Eä that still matters. And from somewhere on that shining disc an answering call comes up to meet him. For an instant the connection holds, so bright it might almost be visible, a golden thread tying him to the remnants of his shattered empire.

_Melkor? Melkor, please, I beg you..._

There is no time beyond the Door, but down on Arda there may be enough left to say what should have been said.

 _Farewell, Mairon_ , he says. _Know that I have always—_

The Door slams shut.

There is Silence.


End file.
